JGB May 1983 at the Bushnell in Hartford. 2 night run. Standing outside on the curb at the side of the theater Pre-Show. Pouring rain, My girlfriend and I (I was 16) standing with an umbrella. Limo pulls up, Jerry and Rock Scully get out and Jerry says to me "Can I get a Ride with you" I was confused (and mind altered) and muttered something like "But you're already here?" and he laughed and goes, "No, I want to ride under your umbrella." So we walked him to the backstage door.Talked about a couple mundane things, I asked him for a Tangled up in Blue. In the very early 80's even though he was playing Tangled a lot, it was still pretty special at Jerry shows, always got like the biggest reception of the night, at least on the East Coast. Anyway, when Jerry went through the door,Rock hung around and talked to us another minute or so, asking how many shows we were seeing, where we lived, etc... and was asking about the availability of certain <ahem> items.We had great seats like second row on Jerry's side. (these were the small theater JGB days, EVERY seat was great!) anyway, During setbreak, Rock came out front and hung backstage passes around my neck and my girlfriends neck and took us to the hospitality room backstage. We hung out for break, (jerry wasnt there) and when it became apparent the second set was going to start we were about to head back to our seats, but instead we were invited to watch from the side of the stage with about 20 others on Jerry's side. We were just standing there when Jerry walked right by us on his way to the stage and says "hey, its the umbrella team" as he starts to continue to the stage my girlfriend goes, "What about that Tangled?" ..... he then proceded to open the second set with it, and during the intro bars, turned to us at the side of the stage, peered over his glasses, smiled and nodded to us. We thought we were the coolest......haha

By the way, from a historical perspective JGB was on FIRE this tour. These 2 Hartford shows were great, but the Cape Cod show immediately before (I was there) and the Roseland show (I was there but couldnt get in immediately following the Hartford shows, were simply epic. It is like the JGB version of GD's May 1977.

See here is the thing with these, this was supposed to be the quickie, and it ends up not being so quick! It seems people are interested in everyone's stories, and I am too, I know some people on rukind certainly have some Great ones, and I would love to hear them too! I actually have a couple good ones to share, where I actually had some meaningful dialogue with Jerry, Bobby and Brent.... but I am going to have to do those from home as those are going to take quite a while to type up and when my Boss (who sits 10 feet from me) hears me typing for 45 minutes straight, he knows it's not part of my normal IT duties!!

.......................................................have you heard the one about the yellow dog?

Roseland - I think that show opened w/ Rhapsody in Red? If so, I was there - brutally HOT - no A/C. Very physical too - lots of big drunken a-holes. I left early. Soon afterwards, Bobby played there. I planned on selling my ticket, but couldn't find a taker. Decided to go in. Very laid back, cool & uncrowded - quite the opposite experience from the Jerry show. Gary US Bonds was the opening act? Or, was that the Jerry show???

Roseland 5/31/83 is a great show. Opens with a rockin Rhapsody in Red. The "That's What Love Will Make You Do" is smokin' especially after the organ solo. One of the most distorted "clean" tone I've ever heard. Very noticable clipping on almost every note.

Gary US Bonds opened for Jerry ... forgot about that. I was at those shows, too. I was in the front row, but very hot and crowded in there.

I loved seeing the Garcia band in that era, but it always irked me that John Scher would split Garcia's two sets into an early and late show at his venues ... saw a few at the Capitol Theater in Passaic back then. Worst was at Convention Hall in Asbury Park 7-26-80 where he put Dr. John as the opening act (he was good of course, opened with Iko) ... but Jerry was late to start the early show, so the late show started late ... Jerry did four tunes (I'll Take a Melody, Deal, Russian Lullabye, Tangled ... walked off ... came back on and played Dear Prudence and that was the whole damn show because of the curfew).

Scully's book has some great vignettes about finding the kid in the crowd with the best blow and bringing him into meet Jerry ...

**********

"This is Jerry Garcia ... ," I say, opening the door to his dressing room, but Jerry doesn't have time to socialize.

He goes, "BREAK IT OUT!"

Scronnnnnkkkkkk, ahhhh-hhhhhhaaaaaaaa-ah. And that is the end of the audience.

I go, "Say goodbye to Jerry." The kid's happy just to have been in his presence. He can go around the hall saying, "Jerry's doing my blow!"

One thing to keep in mind for people younger than Vic, Michael and I is that early 80's the scene was MUCH mellower. Even GD land was mellow. I remember as late as spring 1984 being at the New Haven Coliseum on a Tuesday night for a GD show and could not GIVE an extra ticket away! The conventional wisdom was that IN the Dark in 1987 is what brought the masses, but it actually seemed to me to start turning in the summer of 85 for the 20th anniversary tour. Every Arena after that was sold out and remember they were playing stadiums with Dylan/Petty in 86, a FULL YEAR before in the Dark.The Jerry Band was even mellower in the early 80's,and he was only playing in 1500-2000 seat TOPS theaters and I even saw him in a big Bar in West Hartford. During set break Greg Errico the drummer in JGB at the time, didnt walk backstage, he walked down the side stage steps to the bar!) It was WAY easier to hang out and because the scene wasn't so wild the guys were a bit more accessible.

.......................................................have you heard the one about the yellow dog?

jeffm725 wrote:I remember as late as spring 1984 being at the New Haven Coliseum on a Tuesday night for a GD show and could not GIVE an extra ticket away!

My first show was 5/5/77. I was 13 and my friend and I had tickets to see the group Boston the next night at the New Haven Coliseum. I have no idea why we were down there trying to trade our Boston tix for Dead tix......I knew every song that was on that Boston album virtually no Dead songs, including the Stephen that they did that night. I do recall DeadHeads trying to convince us that we should just go ahead and go to see Boston the next night. In later years, it was almost like there was a recruitment....."you gotta see this", where as in '77, it was more like "we got a good thing, if you find out about it, that's cool". At least that's how I saw it.

jeffm725 wrote:One thing to keep in mind for people younger than Vic, Michael and I is that early 80's the scene was MUCH mellower. Even GD land was mellow. I remember as late as spring 1984 being at the New Haven Coliseum on a Tuesday night for a GD show and could not GIVE an extra ticket away! The conventional wisdom was that IN the Dark in 1987 is what brought the masses, but it actually seemed to me to start turning in the summer of 85 for the 20th anniversary tour. Every Arena after that was sold out and remember they were playing stadiums with Dylan/Petty in 86, a FULL YEAR before in the Dark.The Jerry Band was even mellower in the early 80's,and he was only playing in 1500-2000 seat TOPS theaters and I even saw him in a big Bar in West Hartford. During set break Greg Errico the drummer in JGB at the time, didnt walk backstage, he walked down the side stage steps to the bar!) It was WAY easier to hang out and because the scene wasn't so wild the guys were a bit more accessible.

I love stories from the early 80's. My first show was in '85 but have a lot of friends who told me about "how it was" in the early 80s. So low key. Almost underground.

I think I do remember some big sweaty dude lunging around, come to think of it.

This is offtopic a bit but one of my favorite GD memories was from 1982 ... I was front row right between Weir and Garcia at the Lakeland Civic Center, they started playing Greatest Story and this hippie chick whips out a plastic tambourine and starts wailing on it right in front of Bobby. That went on for about two minutes, to everyone's irritation, when some tall, skinny guy just reaches over, plucks it out of her hand and sails it way back over the crowd like a Frisbee. Big cheer ... and I saw Weir cracking up.